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Albanian Mafia Comes Home to
Roost[26 June 2001]

Comments by John Jay

The article from the London 'Independent,' [posted below]
illustrates the legacy of blind Western support for Albanian
terrorism masquarading as "victimization" in 1998/99...
and fraudulently presented as such on our TV screens.

Appeasing the cancer of crime-funded terrorism is bad enough...
Pandering to it - as NATO conveniently chose to do in order to
excuse its bombing of the Serbs - is folly almost beyond belief!

The Serbs should have been left to defeat these ruthless
expansionists. Yugoslavia's Macedonian neighbours today must
bitterly regret they were not... and the whole wide world is now
finding out, to its cost.

The Albanian mafia has seized control of the Soho vice trade,
according to a Home Office report.

In the space of less than a year, the ruthless Eastern
European crime network has moved into almost all of the saunas
and massage parlours in the heart of Britain's sex industry. The
development is described as a "revolution" by one
government source.

A Home Office briefing, seen by The Independent, says: "Around
70 per cent of sauna/massage parlours in London's Soho [are] now
controlled by Albanians/Kosovars." The briefing said that
the "tightening grip" of Albanian gangs on the vice
trade was "changing the landscape" of Britain's sex
industry. The Albanian mafia's establishment of a foothold in
Britain is of deep concern to law enforcement agencies, which
have been concerned by the crime network's growing presence in
other parts of Europe.

A source said: "Twelve months ago, Albanian organised
crime was not an issue for the UK. Their infiltration has been
very swift."

Albanian gangs already control much of the vice in Greece,
Germany and Italy, where they have been prepared to take on the
Italian Mafia, particularly in Milan. The Home Office report
follows a shocking study by Save the Children last March, which
revealed that thousands of Albanian girls as young as 14 were
being abducted from their families and sent overseas to work as
prostitutes.

A concerted police raid on Soho brothels in February revealed
that 80 per cent of women working as prostitutes were from
overseas, mostly from the Balkans and Baltic states. According to
the National Criminal Intelligence Service, Albanian women are
also being moved to red light areas in the north of England and
the Midlands. Nearly a decade ago it was predicted that Russian
organised crime would seek to exert influence over the British
vice trade but instead it is Albanian gangs that have taken
control.

Inspector Paul Holmes, of the Metropolitan Police clubs and
vice unit, said the Albanians had come to prominence "very
rapidly" by striking a deal with the Maltese and East End
London gangsters who have traditionally dominated the Soho vice
scene. Inspector Holmes said he believed that 70 to 75 per cent
of women working in UK brothels were now from Albania or were
Kosovo Albanians.

"The Albanians have inserted their girls into the
existing infrastructure [of brothels] but the women are being
controlled by organised criminals," he said.

The arrival of the Albanian mafia has not yet led to violence.
Inspector Holmes described the relationship between the Albanians
and the traditional London vice rackets as "almost like a
comfortable bedfellow thing.

"The people that run these places want a set level of
money and don't care whether the girls are from Albania or Mars.
But we are concerned at what will happen when the turf is full
and the Albanians start setting up their own places."

Similar scenarios in Italy and Germany have led to violent
clashes, with the Albanian gangs demonstrating that they are
incomparably ruthless and heavily armed.

But some women's groups challenge the official view of
Albanian prostitution in London. They argue that the women, many
of whom are seeking asylum, are not being victimised and are
grateful for an opportunity to earn money.

Niki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes said all
the Albanian women she had met had claimed to be "working
independently" and none had said they were exploited by
criminal racketeers.

"There are a number of women in Soho who are sending
money back to their families and have said to us, 'I am the only
wage earner in my family'," she said.

Inspector Holmes said 90 per cent of the women knew they would
be working as prostitutes when they left Albania but he rejected
the idea that they were working independently. "What they
believe is that once they have paid their debt bond they will be
able to make significant money for themselves. The reality is
completely different," he said. "At its most benign it
is ruthless exploitation and at its most malevolent it is rape on
a daily basis." Albanian prostitutes were terrified of
giving evidence against their pimps in case of reprisals against
their families, he said.

The problem of the Albanian mafia in Britain will be raised
tomorrow in Edinburgh, when some of the world's foremost experts
on organised crime will meet to discuss emerging trends at the
Global Forum for Law Enforcement and National Security.

The guest speaker, Mark Galeotti, the director of the
organised crime centre at Keele University, told The Independent
that the Albanian mafia was "the key crime group emerging at
the moment" in Britain.

The old territorial crime families were "increasingly
dinosaurial", he said.

(c) ' The Independent', 2001, Reprinted for
Fair Use Only

***

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